


Thought Plain Thoughts

by jesterlady



Category: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Episode Related, Episode Tag, Gen, Growing Up, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-26
Updated: 2013-05-26
Packaged: 2017-12-13 00:38:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/817908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jesterlady/pseuds/jesterlady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of Mousetrap, John has to make a decision on who he will become.  This loosely follows the end part of that episode.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thought Plain Thoughts

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own TSCC. The title is by C.S. Lewis.

He knew well the smell of blood. It had plagued him ever since he was a small boy, burrowing its way into his body’s memories until he could recognize it anywhere. It permeated the van when he got inside. And he touched it and it stained his fingers and he stared at them in horror. He looked up at his mom and at his uncle and they were all right. He was relieved and he was sickened. Someone else was not all right.

He hadn’t known Michelle, had even harbored some small resentment against her for being so happy with the man he’d grown to accept as being the only thing he’d ever have as a father. But she was dead and it was because of him. Because he’d brought Charlie back into their lives, because he’d run away from his responsibilities, because he was trying to shed his guilt, because he’d wanted some normalcy.

Charlie was a strong man. John had admired that about Charlie from the moment he’d met him. Everyone he loved had to be strong. Charlie had welcomed him, never pushed him, always encouraged him. Charlie had been abandoned, Charlie had moved on. Charlie was married and in love. Had been. Now, he was broken and sitting in a hospital emergency room, holding his dead wife’s wedding ring.

He sat beside Charlie. This was his burden to carry. John needed to be there because he had decided to play with the lives that had been given to him to care for and he had lost. Charlie moved away from him at first and John couldn’t blame him. But the desperate man then turned to even the bane of his existence as a comfort and John never flinched. He would never again. Never make this mistake again. He could not. For how could he lead the future of humanity if he could not bear to comfort a man who had lost something precious because of him? John would send many people to their deaths, he was sure of it.

The adrenaline of being chased was over. The survival instincts were fired down now. The stab of joy at never being able to shake Cameron off his tail was quiet. The fear was still there and the guilt and the knowledge of who he was. There was also a new resolution. He decided that as he tried to give Charlie some semblance of closure. He was John Connor and he would act like it.

He’d killed a man. People had killed for him. Other people had been killed because of him. He lived with a machine from the future. He’d been able to load a gun from the age of four. He was like a machine himself and he was just a sixteen year old boy who was supposed to be twenty four. Someday he would be the future leader of all mankind. In the meantime, he had to learn to be that leader now. John Connor shirked no more.

That’s what he told Riley when he talked to her on the phone. He had to be a grown up. He was no longer able to indulge himself in the casual intimacies she offered. And she’d been so normal. She’d laughed at him and pleaded with him and offered to be nicer to his family. She’d told him so many things. Things he wanted, things he didn’t. Things that were impossible. But he couldn’t help but think of what might have happened if Riley had been with him on the pier. Or if he’d never had to go to the pier because he’d been with his mother or Cameron. They’d lucked out and he didn’t want to take any more chances with her life.

They couldn’t go to the funeral. Cromartie wouldn’t be stopped by a little time spent in the ocean. He would know to look for them there. That time in the hospital would be the last time he’d see Charlie. His almost father. In the future, he wouldn’t miss anyone’s funeral. If they were able to have them. That was something he promised himself. 

He sat with his family. With his mother, his uncle, and his terminator protector. His mom, his uncle, his sister. His mom, his uncle, his friend. His mom, his uncle, his… No matter what he called her, these people were his family. These were the ones he trusted, the ones he could count on, the ones he hoped knew he could be trusted and counted on. They would die to protect him, but he wasn’t to die to protect them. And he might understand that now, he might not. That was something to think about. 

In the meantime, these were the people he needed to be with. Riley wasn’t a part of that, as much as he might want her to be. Maybe she could have been, but it wasn’t to be. Nor could Charlie partake of their family blessings and curses. It was sad, but it was to be. It was the fate he was making for himself.

Cameron didn’t eat, but he got up and got her a plate anyway. She smiled at him. She seemed to like it when he included her. And that’s what he said to them all. He told them he was through with Riley. He told them he was there for them. He told them he was ready to be John Connor. That he was sorry for sulking and wanting to be normal. The dull ache of killing Sarkissian would never go away. The fear of Cameron’s volatility and betrayal was always present. And John shouldn’t have to be twenty four when he was sixteen, but here and now, he was deciding he would be.

Sarah and Derek looked at him in silence and didn’t say anything. His mother had tears in her eyes and Derek didn’t seem much better off. He could tell it pained them that he had to grow up, but they were proud of him. They were obviously less pleased about Cameron’s role in his new found confidence, but now wasn’t the time and place for that particular argument. He needed her, he always would.

“Should spaghetti feel as though it could come back up the esophageal tube?” she asked him after dinner as they did the dishes.

“You should chew it,” he said, smiling to himself.

“A hundred times every bite?”

“It’s a judgment call.”

“Spaghetti is better than pancakes,” she announced next.

“They’re different kinds of things,” he said. “One’s more of an early morning food. The other, not great in the morning.”

“Should food selection always be determined by mood and time of day rather than nutritional factors?” she queried.

“The world’s going to end anyway. Poor nutrition is the least of our worries,” he said, only somewhat bitterly.

“Future You would be proud of you,” she said.

“Are you proud of me?” he asked quietly. 

It was a long moment and he’d offered her five plates to rinse before she answered.

“Yes.”

“We’re going back to school,” he said as if she hadn’t said anything. “I think Morris might burst if he doesn’t get to take you to prom.” 

He glanced at her as he said it and laughed to see her actually make a grimace.

“I am not accustomed to such social situations,” she said. “It is your doing that requires me to fill the function of his date. It will be your job to assist me in preparing.”

“I’ll teach you all about being a date,” he promised. 

If certain other thoughts flickered through his head, he didn’t say anything. Now was not the time. Now was the time for being the best John Connor of the present he could be and if that included teaching a machine from the future how to behave on a date, he wouldn’t complain.


End file.
